Compared to the post-industrial prosperity Americans enjoy today, “sweatshops” seem inhuman. But there is another side to the story. Strange as it sounds, there are places “where sweatshops are a dream” offering life-transforming wages. Particularly for women. Factory work has historically offered women an escape hatch from traditional gender roles. During the Industrial Revolution in Europe and the United States, young women fled the impoverished countryside to work at factories in cities where they could earn and spend their own money. Most ceased work after marriage, but for a time they enjoyed a level of independence that disturbed Victorian sensibilities.

Read more at thehill.com